9/11 Middle Schoolers Remembered

Bernard Curtis Brown II

Rodney Dickens

Asia Cottom

                                                      
    Ten years and two days ago, an estimated 3,051 children and teenagers lost parents in the terrorist attacks. Three eleven-year-olds actually lost their lives. Asia Cottom, Bernard Curtis Brown, and Rodney Dickens of Washington, D.C. boarded Flight 77, the one that crashed into the pentagon. They were meant to go to the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary for an educational field trip.
    Rodney grew up in a tough neighborhood, but he avoided trouble and worked hard. He loved reading, computer games, and watching wrestling matches on TV. He always made the honor roll and must have been exhilarated when he had the opportunity to go an this amazig sponsored field trip.
          Bernard played soccer and football, but his true love was basketball. He had been on teams since the age of seven. First thing on Saturday mornings, he would go out and shoot hoops. He always said he would play professionally someday. He was clever, the kind of kid who keeps teachers on their toes. That's why his teacher gave his name when asked who she thought deserved to go on a field trip. Bernard's father worked in the pentagon, but he was out golfing when the attacks occured.
         Asia loved purses, dancing, jump roping, science, math, and Tweety Bird. She wanted to be a peditrician when she grew up. She was interested in computers and wanted her classmates to learn as much about them as she did. Her teachers were challenged to help her expand her horizons. Asia was excited for her field trip and spent hours on the internet researching National Geographic. She was also enthusiastic about her faith. She studied the bible on her own and wrote notes on the more challenging passages. On the night after the crash, her mother told Asia's teacher, "Mrs. Jones, my baby got her wings today."
     Mrs. Jones responded,"We have to live right so we can get our wings when it is our time."

Children Around the World

     Photographer James Mollison captures the lives of children and teenagers around the world in his book, 'Where Children Sleep'. The book contains images of four- to seventeen-year-olds and pictures of their bedrooms. I won't add too much text, letting the photos speak for themselves.


Thais, 11, lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She wants to be a model when she grows up.  
 
Prena, 14, lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, where she works as a domestic worker. She makes the equivalent of $6.50 a month, goes to school three days a week, and dreams of being a doctor.

Lamine, 12, lives in Senegal. He spends many hours each day working on his school's farm, but he also has time to play sports with his friends. This is one of my favorite photos because you can see books in it.


Kaya, 4, lives in Tokyo, Japan. Her mother spends over $1,000 a month on her clothes and toys.


Irkena, 14, lives in a semi-nomadic tribe in Kenya.

Pick On Someone Your Own Size

These two cartoon strips ran in my local newspaper yesterday:
 

     If the first comic had made fun of women, handicapped people, or racial minorities, they wouldn't have printed it in the first place in fear of offending someone. Well, I'm certainly offended. I understand that Bruce Tinsley is trying to make his readers laugh, but he had made the mistake of assuming that his readers consist entirely of adults. In my experience, adults are generally more interested in the sports or news sections.
     As for the second one, I'm not even sure why I bothered to read it this week. I can't recall the last time Zits depicted teenagers doing anything positive. I'm not sure why Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman struggle with this. Luann, Baldo, Hi and Lois, and Foxtrot write perfectly funny strips about teenagers going through everyday life. Flo & Friends features a teenage girl with a pink mohawk who enjoys hanging out with her grandmother.
     After I finish this post, I'm going to write emails to all three cartoonists expressing my frustration, encouraging them to be more tolerant in the future, and mentioning that I my blog has been read hundreds of times in over twenty countries. If I find something else rude, I'll post it here.

The Pros and Cons

The Seven Best Things About Being a Teenager
1: Going to the mall without parents
2: Going to the mall with friends instead of parents
3: Enjoying myself while adults worry about all those silly grown-up things, like taxes.
4: Being able to drive...eventually
5: Not having to eat from the kiddie menu
6: Going on big roller coasters
7: If you so choose to run around walmart with a tutu, a cart full of pineapples, and a friend in a gorilla suit*, nobody wonders why you're doing it. Being a teenager is explanation enough.

The Three Worst Things About Being a Teenager
1: Adults don't take you seriously
2: Comments that would have been called funny if an adult had said them are sassy coming out of your mouth.
3: Whenever you enter a store without an adult, there's the possibility of getting kicked out because somebody thinks you're up to no good.

*If haven't done that (yet) but I've done similar things

London Rioters Not Helping

A woman leaps out of a building set on fire by London rioters

    Most of you have heard about the riots going on in London-buildings set aflame, shops being looted, and rioters arrested. In most cases, the rioters are young, most of them under twenty and some as young as eight. Many of them are also unemployed, frustrated with the system, and feel that society owes them something.
     I know they're young, I know they have something to be angry about, I know they're the kind of people I often write about, but I'm not siding with them. They're not like the activists in northwest Africa,  waving signs and chanting slogans. They're not poor, hungry mobs raiding grocery stores for bread and milk. They're mugging people and stealing flatscreen TVs, as if to say, "Society won't give us jobs, so we're never going to be able to afford this. Might as well take it while we have the chance."
     Society does not owe you a flatscreen. Society does not owe anybody a flatscreen. You want a flatscreen, get a job and buy one. I know you're frustrated because you don't have a job, but that's know reason to wreck the business of somebody who does.
     In addition to damaging others' businesses, they're also damaging the reputations of youth worldwide. Young people are already prejudiced enough, these idiots aren't helping create a positive image. 

"Teenagers These Days!"

   Three days ago, my friend Esme rode her bike to the store to buy cake mix and frosting. After she found what she was looking for, Esme walked up to the checkout line to make her purchase. The cashier, a woman in her late forties or early fifties, asked, "Where's your mom?"
"At home."
"How did you get here?"
"My bike."
"Where do you live?"
Stalker, she thought. "Close to the store."
"That's good," the lady said. "I don't like the idea of teenagers being out alone unsupervised."
As she walked out the door, Esme heard her mutter, "Teenagers these days."
     I think it's a little odd that she would say this. Esme didn't sass her, she politely answered all her questions. She didn't even have to answer them-that lady was nosy. Why are people so inclined to think negatively of teenagers?

Invisible Middle School

                                                                         Pictured above.
     I can't remember a time when I didn't know the name of my local high school. When I was in kindergarten, the elementary school was going through some repairs, so my first few weeks of school took place in the high school building. When I got older, I watched the high school basketball team and dance company at assemblies. My brother's football jerseys were the high school colors. My classmates wore t-shirts, pants, and sweatshirts with the high school's name or mascot on them. If I wanted to, I could buy these at my local grocery store. Everybody made a big deal when the football team won a game, even me, and I don't like sports in general.
     When I was in fifth grade, a friend told me she would be going to Oquirrh Hills and asked if I would go to the same place. "I don't know," I said. I knew I was going to the local middle school, but I didn't know the school's name. After two years at Oquirrh, I'm still not sure what our school colors are. Nobody knows who's on the basketball team-the only team we have-unless they sit next to you in class and tell you. The only sweatshirts with our school's name on it our worn by student leadership groups. Even the elementary school has shirts for sale twice a year.
     Why is it that middle schools seem to fade into the background? Maybe it's because they're in the middle. People have a tendency to look at the littlest and biggest things and ignore the stuff in the middle. This can affect laws being made. Awhile back, people were talking about making a law that would cut busing from middle and high school students and give it to elementary schools. One of the reasons for this was the fact that many high school students drive their own cars. That's great, but what about the middle schoolers?
     Just remember not to overlook somebody because they're too old or young. Like this guy: